PII Motherboard with 40 gig=BAD????

[MGully]

I have a 40 gig Maxtor harddrive that I would like to put in to a computer running a PII 300 and a motherboard that I think is a Soyo the markings on the board say VL-601. When I hook the hard drive up it locks up on the screen that starts listing different components with the boxes. Can the board not handle a 40 gig drive? Do I just need to update the bios? I went to the SOYO site and looked for the board but I can't find the same lettering. Is there a piece of software or somewhere in XP that will tell me my mb make and model.

Thanks

 

[JetBlack69]

You know, I had the same problem yesterday with a friend of mine's computer. I found something here, but I can't test it because his old hard drive died and his new one won't boot the computer.

http://www.wimsbios.com/

Hope this helps.

EDIT: this is the program I was trying to link to. http://www.esupport.com/biosagent/index.cfm?refererid=1

 

[MGully]

Well I figured out the board is a FIC and I am going to try and update the bios right now, we'll see if that works

 

[MGully]

Ok, this is very odd. I went and download the newest BIOS and when I try and run it, it says "Your program caused a divide overflow error. If the problem persists, contact your program vendor." What the heck does that mean and what do I do? Also it says Award Software on top and the current BIOS I have is AMI. I am pretty sure I downloaded the right one.

I then tried to install an earlier BIOS than than the latest they are offering and when I tried to flash it said "BIOS file size and detected FLash EPROM size does not match"

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Amused]

You could always buy a PCI ATA 66/100 controller or RAID card. That's the easiest way around old mobo HDD size and speed restrictions.

 

[CrazySaint]

Here is the FIC VL-601 BIOS page get the latest BIOS there. Most old motherboards (your board qualifies as "old") don't support HD sizes over 32GB. Happily, most HDs that are larger than 32GB have a jumper setting on the drive limiting them to 32GB, allowing them to run on older boards. Unfortunately, you lose 8GB of HD space this way. AFAIK, your only other alternative is to purchase an IDE card as Amused suggested.

 

[Mday]

Originally posted by: Amused
You could always buy a PCI ATA 66/100 controller or RAID card. That's the easiest way around old mobo HDD size and speed restrictions.

i second the motion. forget about raid though.

 

[0roo0roo]

hahaha raid on a p2 300

 

[MGully]

Thanks for all the help

 

[MGully]

Well I threw in a IDE controller and the card finds it but then the system freezes after it shows the specs on the harddrive and says IDE BUS Master Enabled but then freezes. Anyone have any ideas

 

[MGully]

Anyone have any suggests?

 

[alkemyst]

hmm this is odd....what exactly are you trying to do?

let us know the steps because once that card was in place it should have worked.

bus masters installed, latest motherboard BIOS?, legal copy of the O/S, not overclocked?

 

[crewdog]

i had this same problem trying to use an 80gb drive on an old p2. it worked if i made single 20 gb partition, so i convinced client to get new mobo/cpu/os to use ntfs since fat32 would not partition over 30 gb.